johan (5)

Elizabeth’s sorrow was so great...

that she could no longer bear to remain in Juttah without John. Consequently, she returned to him in the desert. She soon after died there, and was buried by an Essenian, a relative of Anna the Prophetess. 

The house in Juttah, a very handsomely ordered one, was occupied by her sister’s daughter. John secretly returned to it once after his mother’s death, after which he buried himself still deeper in the desert, and thenceforth was altogether alone. 

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I saw him journeying to the south, around the Dead Sea... 

then up the eastern side of the Jordan, from wilderness to wilderness toward Kedar, and even toward Gessur. When he passed from one wilderness to another, I saw him running through broad fields by night. He went to that region where, long after, I saw John the Evangelist sitting and writing under the high trees. Under those trees grew bushes with berries, of which he sometimes ate. 

I saw him also eating a certain herb that bears a white flower, and has five round leaves like clover. We have at home herbs like them, only smaller. They grow under the hedges, and the leaves have a sourish taste. When I was a child, I used to love to chew them, while minding the cattle off in the solitary fields, because I had seen John eating them. 

I also saw him drawing forth from holes in the trees, and picking out of moss on the ground lumps of some brownish-looking stuff, which he ate. I think it was wild honey, for it was very plentiful there. 

The skin that he had brought with him from home... 

he now wore around his loins [lendenen]...

and over his shoulders hung a brown, shaggy [ruige] cover which he had woven himself. There were in the desert wool-bearing animals which ran tamely around John, and camels with long hair on their neck. They stood most patiently and allowed him to pull it out. I saw him twisting the hair into cords, and weaving from them that covering which he wore hanging around him, when he appeared among men and baptized.

I saw him in continual and familiar communication with angels, by whom he was instructed. He slept upon the hard rock and under the open sky, ran over rough stones through thorns and briers [stekels en doornen], disciplined himself with thistles, wore himself out working on trees and stones, and lay prostrate in prayer and contemplation. 

He leveled roads, made little bridges, and changed the course of well springs. I often saw him writing in the sand with a reed, kneeling and standing motionless in ecstasy, or praying with outstretched arms. His penance and mortification became more and more severe, his prayer longer and more fervent. 

He saw the Saviour only three times face to face with his bodily eyes. 

But Jesus was with him in spirit. 

And John, who was constantly in the prophetic state... 

saw in spirit the actions of Jesus.

~bron~